Evidence relied on by Irving in support of his claims

8.25 Irving noted that shortly after the end of the war the Poles, who were in possession of all the records, claimed that altogether nearly 300,000 people of different nationalities died at Auschwitz. That figure gradually increased to four million, which was the number mentioned (unitl 1990) on the monument erected by the Communists in memory of the dead. The figure then came down again. As for the total number of those who died in the Holocaust, Irving claimed that the figure was said by Justice Jackson at Nuremberg to be a back of an envelope calculation. Other estimates were significantly lower. There are real doubts about the figures, concluded Irving. He said he did not want to "play the numbers game".

8.26 He nevertheless put to the Defendants' witnesses in cross-examination that figures for the total number of those killed at Auschwitz are to be found in the camp "death books" and the cipher messages from Auschwitz to Berlin which were decrypted at Bletchley. I have already recorded the contention of the Defendants that these figures take account only of those who were registered at the camp and not those who were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival there. Irving also argued that the incineration capacity of the ovens meant that the number of those killed must have been far lower than Longerich claimed.

8.27 Irving relied on the contents of the Haganah report about the number of Jews who were transported at the end of the war from the displaced persons camps to Israel. This report explains, so Irving maintained, why many Jews could not be traced and so were erroneously thought to have lost their lives in the concentration camps when in truth they started new lives in Israel.

8.28 Irving also sought to justify his claim as to the number of Jews who were killed in the concentration camps by reference to what he said were the 450,000 Jews who had lodged claims for compensation arising out of the Holocaust. If that many survived, said Irving, the number of the dead must be far smaller than claimed. The Defendants did not accept Irving's figure for the number of claimants. In any event they pointed out that the claimants include the children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims for the return of property of which they were dispossessed many years ago and so cast no light on the number of those who lost their lives.